Mastering the Lens: Before and After Cartier-Bresson in Pondicherry

This publication emanates from an exhibition by the same title, displayed for the first time at the Alliance Francaise de Delhi. It is an attempt to trace the development of photography and the other allied visual arts in Pondicherry spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Drawn exclusively from The Alkazi Collection of Photography, at the core of this initiative is the unpublished album by renowned photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, co-founder of Magnum Photos, who visited the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in April 1950.